The Long War
by nericearren
Summary: Reyna wants him to be a hero. Piper wants him to be a soldier. And Jason? Jason just wants to see Nico again. the winter soldier/captain america au you've been waiting for
1. Chapter 1

The thud of Jason's footsteps echoes the pounding of his heart, and the rasp of his breath through his throat and down to his chilled lungs is painful, even to his enhanced body.

His life is flashing, if not before his eyes, then on a picture screen in the back of his brain.

He's two-his first memory-and waving goodbye to his mother, who in his mind's eye wears net stockings and dark eyeshadow and not much other than that.

He's five, and his sister is scooping him up in her arms, giving him Big Hugs and lots of kisses, squeezing away the hurt of her own passage, whispering pointless apologies in his ear.

And eleven; all knock-knees and too-small clothes, cowering under the glares of the bigger boys as he tries to hide his gangly growth with hunched shoulders and a weak cough that soon becomes too real.

Twelve, moving from the now-comforting children's nursery to the scary ranks of the boys' bunks.

He's fifteen, seventeen, eighteen-getting into fights he can't finish, waiting on the steps of the orphanage for the Good Humor truck to pass, asking pretty Drew Tanaka to dance because every other boy is too skittish to trust her slanted features as they throw slurs at her like marbles on the sidewalk.

He's eighteen and three-quarters, and his knees are shaking as he forces a smile onto his stiff face and promises the recruitment officer that he is, indeed, twenty-one; and his knees are still shaking as they turn him away-once, twice, three times. He wanted so badly to do something good-it's all that he ever wanted.

Now that it's too late, he wonders if it was even worth it. The blood, the heroism, the war and the sacrifices and every dying face? Was that worth going through all of the treatments and experiments and humiliation, and becoming a painted figurehead at the forefront of an organization he's not sure he wants to represent?

Probably not, but he's done it now. As he speeds towards not-quite-certain death, the past blurs into nothing but ghosts spinning fairy tales, and he grips his fancy new shield in one hand and his rosary in the other, and his thoughts become one pulsating, vibrating, _staying_ word that beats a staccato rhythm in time with his feet and his heart.

 _Nico, Nico, Nico._

That's what this is about. That's what this has _always_ been about.

It he can't rescue Nico, then all of the standing in front of patriotic banners, and singing to little babies while big-bulbed cameras flashed black-and-white pictures, waving at political rallies and elections stateside, all of that supposed morale-boosting is completely bogus. It means nothing. _This_ is what he was built for. _This_ is what he should have been doing all along. Everything else has been nothing but a distraction.

As he breaks out of the narrow, winding tunnel and enters the hollow belly of the mountain, the thump-thump-thumping in his ears is replaced by a more familiar sound; the whirring of rotor blades. Before him, a helicopter sits in the tight space, creating a whirlwind that whips his hair around like a tornado.

The aircraft is already lifting off the ground-Jason draws another burst of speed from his reserves(feels like it might be the last), and hurtles towards the craft, launching himself onto the vertical, flat tail and holding on, slinging his shield over his shoulder for safekeeping.

His feet scrabble for purchase, finding it in a small, auxiliary wing just before the copter's clunky wheels part from the stone ground for good. The aircraft wobbles slightly as the pilot hurries to correct the weight imbalance, and turns in a semi-circle like a confused dog before beelining for the mouth of the cave. It shoots out of the side of the mountain before Jason can do much more than dig the reinforced pads of his gloves into the fabric covering the tail.

The weather hits him first, as they hurtle away from Mt. Kamen and towards the Arctic Sea-their altitude isn't the highest he's ever been at, even unprotected, but the wind that bites at his face is more severe than his days roaming through Siberia, hunting down Hydra bases. Ice chips slice into his skin, whipped around in the vaporous clouds that hang over the Urals like the world's coldest blanket, and the blood freezes in the small cuts before it has a chance to clot. His hearing is nothing but a useless roar, and he can barely keep his eyes open.

Grappling his way into the helicopter is possibly the hardest thing he's ever had to do, and it feels like years before his numb fingers catch on a raised steel panel. He digs the fingerpads of his gloves into the groove, using one hand to hold on to the copter while the other pulls uselessly at the door. He's soaked to the skin, his suit doing little, if anything, to counteract the gale that engulfs him and the chopper in a world of wet, freezing grayness.

The door gives out after an eternity and flies open, immediately yanked from his grip by the winds that slam it against the far side of the helicopter. Jason can't see inside from this angle; but, at this point, it doesn't matter. He has to get inside before his veins ice over and he dies from the thinning oxygen.

He inches along the slick side of the craft, one boot remaining firmly-as firmly as it can be-placed on the navigation wing of the heli until both of his hands have a strong grip on either side of the door. He kicks off from the steel side, legs flying into the air for a stomach-lurching second before he manages to haul himself into the body, thanking God the entire time for super-soldier-serums and the laws of kinetic motion and, of course, good ole' fashioned grit.

After the blinding brightness outside, it takes Jason's eyes some time to get used to the gloomy interior. He braces himself in the doorframe, the wind biting at his back, and blinks rapidly, hoping to accelerate the adjustment. The baby suns in his vision recede slowly, giving him the scene in patches.

There's Nico, seated behind the pilot's chair with his hands tied. A cloth gag is bound tightly around his narrow face, and he's still in his tattered combat uniform, the grayish green fabric nearly bleached of color. His skin is ashen, its healthy olive complexion sickly, with eggplant-purple circles lurking under his nearly black eyes. His eyebrows are raised.

Jason knows that look-hell, he's _caused_ that look before. It's the face that Nico makes just before everything goes to pot; a sort of last-ditch, run-you-chucklewit kind of expression.

Then there's the small matter of the bomb nestled in the very small space between Nico and where Jason is standing precariously at the very threshold of the helipit. There's no mistaking it-he's seen enough of these babies to know, even without the helpfully printed word German word on the side of its casing: _BRISANT._ Explosive. Jason takes a moment to appreciate the utter uselessness of a labeled bomb. Then he yanks his attention back to the situation.

Nico's jerking his head back and forth, between Jason and the door, eyes widening to the point where he doesn't look human anymore, just like a scared, trapped animal. But what does he expect Jason to do? Jump back out?

Jason, therefore, ignores him and rushes forwards. The pilot, finally aware of his presence, is yelling at him in German, which Jason is too distracted to properly understand. The gist of it is "get out of my helicopter" which, again, isn't an option.

Jason removes the gag from Nico's mouth, and the first thing out of his old friend's lips is a string of Italian curses.

"You're welcome," Jason tells him. "It was nothing, just a short jog through an enemy war base and a ride on the outside of a helicopter in a snowstorm."

"You idiot," Nico hisses in English. "You shouldn't have come after me!"

"Because you're doing so well on your own," Jason deadpans. "C'mon, buddy, I have this one. Just admit it."

Nico scowls, massaging his wrists. "You think you're so smart? This is a _trap_ , chucklewit."

A trap? Jason casts his mind back, tries to remember if the possibility of a trap crossed his mind. His thought process goes: Nico, Hydra base, helicopter, Nico. Nope, no mention of a trap. He supposes it might have been good for him to consider that-but he would have come anyway. He would have come under any circumstance.

"So, what? The bomb's about to blow?" Jason asks. "Or the pilot is the Baron in disguise?" He pauses. "You're not evil, are you?"

"Of course I'm not evil, you idiot," Nico hisses, getting to his feet. "It's-"

His words are cut off by the sudden motion of the pilot, who apparently just decided that he'd had enough of enemies bickering while he was trying to fly. He points a silver-barreled gun at Nico's chest and says, in guttural German, "Both of you sit down. Now."

The helicopter lurches violently.

Jason races forwards and tackles the man, moving too quickly for any ordinary human to react. His hands are around the man's throat; his hands are breaking the man's neck. The body slumps to the floor.

"That solves the problem," Jason says, sliding into the pilot's chair. "Now, Nico, tell me more about this trap. Specifically, when does the 'trap' part come into play?"

He waits for a reply, and gets none.

"Nico-" he begins, twisting around to see what's got his best friend's tongue. He doesn't like the answer.

Behind him, the Skull himself holds Nico close, almost like a lover but horribly not, his clawed red hands at Nico's throat. Next to them, the decoy bomb lies open and empty.

Bad guy hiding inside a bomb. Who would have thought?

Jason is out of his chair in a minute, not caring that the motion once more makes the copter lurch, and spin in graceless circles to lower and lower altitudes, propellers keeping it just aloft enough to still be wrenched around by the wind.

The Skull shoves Nico aside without a second thought as Jason barrels into him, attempting to snap his neck like the pilot's. The technique doesn't work on a being as horribly mutated as the Skull; the German does nothing but laugh maniacally, twisting out of Jason's grip like a snake. He gets in a good punch as he does, and Jason stumbles back, his jaw stinging.

He swings at the Skull, misses, swings again, and connects. He can hear Nico panting behind him; the familiar words of the Hail Mary. The sound distracts him, and the Skull knocks him to the floor. The helicopter lists.

"It's over!" Jason shouts, wrestling with the enemy. "My squad is eliminating the last Hydra base as we speak! The war is over, bastard! There's no reason to fight any longer."

He throws the Skull off him, pinning him to the floor. He grapples for the man's neck-no matter how mangled a body, it still needs oxygen-and hears a thud behind him. He glances over his shoulder to see Nico, pressed flat against the other side of the copter. The expression on his oldest friend's face can't be described as fear-it's terrified. Nico is terrified.

Of _Jason_.

"You aren't human," Nico says in Italian. "What have they done to you?"

" _Ihnen dasselbe,_ " the Skull hisses beneath Jason's hands, syllables distorted to almost beyond Jason's comprehension.

He takes advantage of the captain's distraction and pushes him over, springing up and tackling Nico-Jason's brain translates the words-and Nico's eyes, his dark, dark eyes, fix onto Jason's, locking together like two puzzle pieces created to fit together-and then both of them, the Skull and Nico, have disappeared, out into the whirling, icy whiteness with little more than a _whip_ as their bodies are taken by the raging wind.

Jason's scream isn't words-it's a roar, straight from the bottom of his lungs, infused with every memory and feeling, every thought and realization and "what's eating you, bud?", and when it finally morphs into something close to a word, it sounds like _Nico_ , because, after all, that's what this whole ordeal has been about.

That's what this has always been about. Without Nico, none of it means anything. There's no reason to fight.

 _Same to you._


	2. Chapter 2

"This is Grace," Jason says, fumbling to push the tiny button on the device lodged uncomfortably in his ear. Despite nearly two years of working as an agent of SHIELD, he's yet to become used to the wacky technology they insist on using. Sure, a hands-free walkie-talkie sounds like a miracle-but in practice, he gets earaches and headaches and has a hard time dislodging the buildup of earwax the device causes. He misses the old days, where you didn't have to talk to your superiors except by letter or-if you were extremely unlucky-radio. And even then, you went through an operator who censored one out of every three of your words.

Now he has SHIELD director Reyna A-Ramirez Arellano (known behind her back as Ra-Ra) barking orders straight into his ear, undermining his clearly better judgment on the most basic of missions, and deputy director Hazel Levesque making pointed remarks about his love life in the middle of a firefight, and sometimes-when he's _extremely_ lucky-wise guy Iron Man, giving him an endless supply of snark and bad advice. Which both of them would be better people without.

"Grace," Levesque acknowledges him now, more subdued than usual. Jason doesn't blame her-today is the anniversary of Agent Zhang's death. They're all more subdued than usual. "Orders are yellow. Proceed with caution."

Next to him, Agent McLean rolls her eyes and clicks the safety back on her hand gun. She presses the comm in her ear, joining the conversation. "What's going to attack us? These terrifying shipping crates?" She kicks one to prove her point, the toe of her reinforced steel boot bouncing harmlessly off of the wood planks.

Piper, Jason has learned, expresses her sadness with hostility and a lumberjack portion of sarcasm. She also hates being told to be careful.

"Is that back talk, Widow?" Levesque asks. Jason used to think she was easygoing; now he knows that she just chooses to hide her steel until it's needed.

"No," Piper says, scowling. She isn't fond of her codename.

"Everything's quiet on our front," Jason interjects. He scans the warehouse, making sure his words are true. All he sees are crates, identical to the one Piper kicked, and more crates. At the back of the warehouse is a large folding door, the kind installed in the hanger back at base, obscured with-surprise, surprise-even more crates.

Jason remembers being amazed that a door could retract into a ceiling.

Nico would have found that neat, too.

He shakes the thought away-Nico's been popping up in his head too often as of late-and half-turns on his heel, looking back the way they came. Still nothing. This is an empty warehouse.

He had his butt dragged out of bed at three in the morning to get dressed up in a pretty spandex suit and skulk around an empty warehouse.

"There's nothing here," he says, frustrated and doing his level best to not show it.

"All right, Levesque, start talking," Piper orders, as Jason begins to poke around the crates in the hopes that his declaration will be proven wrong. His existence is basically meaningless without a civilian to rescue or a bomb to diffuse. He might as well take a job as a burger-flipper down at the nearest joint-er, _restaurant_.

Stupid, how cheap places are called restaurants now while you take your gal out for a fancy date at a _bar_. Not for the first time, Jason thinks that the world has turned itself ass-backwards while he slept. Percy would say that he just wasn't with the times, but that never makes Jason feel better.

Even Piper, easily his closest friend, has no idea what he goes through, waking up every morning expecting to be one place before realizing that he's in another; an alien and sometimes frightening world that simultaneously rejects and needs him. He doesn't mind when there's a crisis at hand, but times like now-when it's been two years since the last major disaster and he's chomping at the bit for even a simple so-called retcon like this-he feels burned out. Even his friends have taken to calling him Gramps, like he's a geezer who's time is up.

Jason pulls himself out of his sulk in time to hear Piper say, alarmed, "Director Ramirez is _what_?!"

The tone of her voice alerts him, and he quickly jumps back onto the line. "Say that again, Agent Levesque?" he requests.

"I said," Levesque repeats, with a touch of asperity, "Executive Director Ramirez is officially missing, as of ten seconds ago."

"Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Piper asks angrily, spinning on her heel and dashing out of the warehouse. Jason sprints after her, too used to her abrupt exits to complain.

"Details," he says briefly, aware of how crucial time can be in a-dare he call it this?-crisis situation.

He should probably be more worried about the director, but the adrenaline is freely flowing through his veins now, and he's excited at the prospect of becoming useful again. Please let something exciting happen, he begs internally. Please.

"She left SHIELD three hours ago, shortly before you and Piper were deployed," Hazel reports. "She had mentioned needing some rest, so none of us thought it was odd when she missed the daily noontime board meeting."

Jason has contemplated missing the daily noontime board meeting before-unfortunately, he isn't the director of an international intelligence and defense agency; he can get away with murder, but not shirking bureaucracy.

"Then what?" Piper demands, already halfway to their jet. The pilot, no doubt listening to the conversation through his own headset, has already started the engine.

"Then Agent Castellan attempted to contact her at her home address-which _he_ has clearance to do," Levesque adds pointedly, no doubt referencing the one nominal time during a national emergency that Jason broke down the door of Reyna's Brooklyn apartment to warn her that her life was in danger. After the fiasco was over, the SHIELD board of administrators-collectively called the Directorate- actually had the nerve to charge him with insubordination.

"Long story short, he found her apartment ransacked and a few mortally injured hostiles on the scene," she goes on now, after a short pause in which Jason acknowledged his stupidity in not letting the director die horribly in a government coup. "She was officially declared missing less than ten seconds before I told you."

"You still should have told us right away," Piper gripes, boarding the jet, Jason on her heels.

"I'm sorry," Hazel replies sweetly. "I was too busy listening to you whine about boredom."

Piper scowls.

"You're actually closer to New York than we are," Hazel says. "Agent Nakamura will take you there now. Investigate as closely as you can, but _don't touch anything._ "

Another barb at Jason-just because he _once_ soiled a tiny, practically unnoticeable piece of DNA evidence that she needed to catch a serial killer. How was he supposed to know that people can use hairbrushes to find patterns of atoms that match other patterns of atoms unique to other people? In his day, it was all tracking dogs and legwork. "Report your findings back at 0700."

Mercifully, she turns off the communication link after this edict, leaving Jason and Piper to ride to New York in silence.

"It's probably a training exercise," Piper says, but she doesn't sound convinced. She slides into a seat by the nearest window.

"I'm sure," Jason replies. He pats her shoulder reassuringly. "Everything is going to be fine, Piper. I promise."

Piper stares at his hand until he removes it and retreats. Then she sighs, giving him the kind of look she usually reserves for the guys in her combat class when they've done something particularly unfortunate.

"Cap-Jason-can we talk?" she asks. She pushes a button on the arm of her chair, and a privacy panel slides up between the bay and the cockpit.

"Okay," Jason says, somewhat warily, and sits down across from her. Piper looks serious. End-of-the-world serious, and he gets the feeling that it has nothing to do with Ramirez.

"It's just that-" she's twisting her hands together, wringing them, really, and it's making him nervous. She doesn't usually fidget. "-sometimes I've been getting these . . . um, _vibes_ off of you . . . and I didn't want to give you the wrong idea or anything . . ."

"Wrong idea about what?" Good Lord, he thinks. What has he done _now_? He can't count the number of times his "antiquated" manners have offended people, rather than charmed them; Piper's usually the one to graciously break the news that it's no longer polite to call someone a Chink.

" _Us_ ," she says significantly and then, in case he didn't catch her drift, "You and me. Our relationship."

Uh-oh.

Just uh-oh.

"Go on," he says cautiously, hoping that he isn't plunging into a metaphorical minefield.

"I just-I wanted to be clear," Piper explains. "So that, later on the line, our partnership isn't . . . compromised."

"Okay." He's nodding like a moron, sincerely hoping that this conversation isn't taking the direction he thinks it is. Because he really doesn't want to have to explain to Piper that-

"I'm taken," she blurts out, and winces. "Rats. That came out presumptuous. Like, super-presumptuous. I sounded like Percy just then. I wasn't trying to. I just didn't want you thinking that I was on the market. God. That was worse. I should stop talking now."

"No, no," Jason hastens to reassure her, as a wave of relief crashes over him. "I didn't realize I was . . . what did you say? Giving out vibes?" He hadn't meant to; and luckily, because it's Piper, he doesn't have to go into a whole explanation of why he wasn't gunning for her, how he felt about the experience, what he was thinking from the moment he met her to now-Piper doesn't work that way. Thankfully.

Piper breaks into a graceful smile. "Thanks. I just didn't want-I mean, I wasn't _assuming_ that you-but I always like to cover my bases-"

"I know," Jason cuts in, giving her a smile in return. "That's just how you are." And he's very, very fortunate that's how she is. "For the record, I think he's a lucky son-of-a-gun."

Which is clearly the wrong thing to say. He loses his momentary relief at once as her face darkens and she begins twisting her hands together again.

"I really didn't want to have this conversation," Piper admits. "But, in light of-of everything-friends shouldn't keep secrets. So just, um, sit on your hands and try not to be too 1940s right now." She takes a beat, and he wonders if she's waiting for him to actually sit on his hands. Then she goes on. "You know, Jase, in this decade it isn't a crime for people to be . . . _different_."

"It isn't a crime in my decade, either," Jason says indignantly. "Our ancestors fought a war for equality-and so did I. I'm not _racist_ , if that's what you're afraid of."

"Not that kind of different," Piper tells him. "I mean . . . about _feelings_ and . . . about, uh-well, having feelings for another girl. Or guy."

Jason cocks his head. "It isn't a crime to have feelings, either." This is it, he thinks. This is the part where she's talking about one thing and he thinks it means another, but for the life of him he can't see what she's getting at.

Piper rolls her eyes, seeing his confusion, and mercifully takes pity on him. "God, you're dense. I'm trying to tell you that I'm not seeing a guy, Grace. I'm seeing a girl. Like, romantically. I'm in love with her. Probably."

At first, Jason is nonplussed. It takes longer than usual for the words to make sense in his brain, as if his neurons are being forced into a route they aren't familiar with. He gapes at her, finally grasping the feeling behind the expression _being floored_. It isn't that he's entirely unused to the concept, more that he's unused to it being applied to anything in his life.

"You're queer?" The word comes out wrong, brings up memories of the boys who would mock him and Nico, and snippets of newspaper stories when he was a child about scandalous nightclubs in Chicago and, when he was older, horrific reports of German persecution. It doesn't seem to fit when brought into the context of the current conversation, not when Piper is so obviously . . . feminine.

She winces now, a pained expression on her face. "I would be . . . careful . . . when you use that term," she says. "Not everyone is cool with it. Although some people like it-it's just complicated, okay? But because it's you . . ."

Jason nods automatically, filing the info into the section of his mind used to remember What Not To Say. He should probably start keeping a physical list somewhere, right next to the collection of movies that Percy claims he has to see before he dies. He ignores the insinuation that he has no tact.

"You aren't . . . scandalized?" Piper asks tentatively.

"It's a little," he searches for the right word this time, a word that she wouldn't take the wrong way. "Nuts."

No-that isn't the right one. She winces again.

"Um, strange," he corrects himself. "It's . . . strange. To me, I mean, but I guess that's my culture. Things like that aren't exactly . . ." Talked about. Told to anyone. Accepted by the general public. "Common," he settles for, folding his hands self-consciously in his lap.

Piper looks as uncomfortable as he feels. They really don't do this chatting-about-feelings-and-personal-lives thing, so it's more the conversation that feels nuts, rather than the topic. "Okay. Well. I'm really glad that you aren't, um, judgy about it."

He wrinkles his nose. He can't say he's mad crazy about the idea, but she has to know him better than that by now-he doesn't like Percy's ceaseless bragging, either, but he still puts up with it. "You're my partner. My-hell, the closest thing I have to family. You should know I don't work that way."

"Yes, well," Piper fidgets with her gun, a sure sign that she wants to venture back into non-personal territory. "I just know that religion is extremely important to you-I see you carrying around that rosary-" she breaks off, and shrugs. "Churches don't have a habit of being kind to us."

Jason's hand automatically goes to the beads around his neck, under his hardened suit. Cue reminder of Nico. "I don't carry this because I'm religious," he says hurriedly. "I mean, I _am_ , but . . a friend gave it to me. From before." He doesn't need to elaborate any more-he's pretty sure that his expression is stone cold.

Piper's face crumples into something close to remorse. "Oh-Jason, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Because he hasn't told anyone. Because he doesn't _want_ to tell anyone, but he's screwed up now, so he might as well. Briefly. "We grew up together, that's all. I was there when he died." He says the words without feeling, as if that might keep him from thinking of Nico. It doesn't.

"I'm sorry," Piper repeats. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions." She twines her fingers around her knees, her flecked eyes studying him carefully. He doesn't talk much about before, doesn't share about his family, friends, or home; but neither does she. She's the person he's closest to in the world, but he doesn't know where she lives. He didn't even know she was seeing anyone, let alone another woman.

He feels a stab of loneliness, of missing true closeness; the kind that results after a lifetime of being with someone. He misses Nico, and the feeling is as tangible as the beads pressing against his skin.

"When I was ten," he begins, and clears the rasp out of his throat before it betrays him. "When I was ten, the Great Depression hit. They didn't call it a Depression at first-I barely remember my mother and sister talking about it, laughing it off like it was just a dry spell that would pass. But it stayed, and by the time I was in sixth grade, it was a Depression.

"Obviously there wasn't a lot of money. Not for the workers, not for the unemployed, and not for some orphanage south of Bronx. That's where I was by then-an orphanage."

Piper mercifully doesn't ask what happened to the mother and sister he just mentioned-it's not relevant to the story, anyway. It's been a long time since Jason thought of those women as family.

"It was in a pretty bad-off neighborhood; dirt poor, full up with mill workers and that sort. And there was this kid, he-" Jason stops. He doesn't know how to get past this part, how to fully capture the moment he met Nico in just a few sentences that Piper will understand. "He was my brother," he says finally. "In all the ways it counted, he was my brother."

Nico hadn't been big, but he was scrappy. He knew how to end the fights that Jason started; he'd always had Jason's back, right up until they enlisted. Jason had safely lived in his friend's shadow for years.

And he'd _hated_ it.

Piper reaches across the center aisle, her hand outstretched in comfort. After a moment, Jason takes it.

"I can't imagine losing my best friend," she tells him. "And I'm sorry that you had to."

The jet touches down in Central Park before they can get too maudlin, and Jason gratefully gets to his feet. He doesn't want to think about Nico any longer-he just wants to see some action.

Piper shares the sentiment, ducking out of the jet and landing on the soft lawn. She turns to wait for him, her hands propped on her hips. She doesn't mention the moment they just had, but her expression is softer than usual.

"Only SHIELD could get away with this," Jason speculates as he exits the craft, and leaps down to stride confidently away from the jet, as if he's just parked his Jeep there instead of a 4,000ft long piece of metal and plastic that does _not_ blend in with the scenery.

They head into Brooklyn on foot, Jason leading Piper easily through his old territory. He used to get turned around in New York, still familiarizing himself with the changes made since 1939, but that was two years ago, and now he's back to knowing the place like the back of his own hand. It helps that some things-the smell of hot dogs, the call of impatient residents, the crush and sweaty smell of the subway system-haven't changed.

It takes them under twenty minutes to reach Director Ramirez's apartment, probably because Jason takes less than conventional routes(the rooftop jumps being Piper's least favorite) to avoid the crowds, which only get worse as the SHIELD jet draws more and more attention. He's pretty sure they're going to make the nightly news if Levesque doesn't pull some strings, but he's equally sure that she will pull those strings, because this is SHIELD and secrecy is its lifeblood.

Reyna lives on the top floor of a white stone apartment complex, where Jason has no doubt she pays a crazy amount of money for a very small space. The view is fantastic, but still. He'd take a cheap basement any day. Piper opens the door with a complex key code, and warns him not to tell Ramirez that she cracked it. Since Jason is still getting used to the idea of glorified calculators keeping things closed, he has no problem agreeing.

The main room is ransacked, Reyna's white furniture cast about like a giant's discarded playthings. There are a few bodies. It's all very textbook; nothing interesting or spectacularly supernatural, like the time that an ancient god landed in Nevada and wreaked havoc in Area 51. Now that was a good weekend.

Jason leaves Piper behind and creeps down the narrow hallway, glancing into the empty bathroom before slowly advancing into the director's bedroom. He raises his shield on instinct, though there's no danger inside. Clearly, the conflict didn't touch the place-the black-sheeted bed is neatly made, the half-open closet door revealing a clean, sparse rack of clothes that has no room for anyone to hide. A jacket lies over the foot of the bed, and there's a brassiere sticking out from under Reyna's pillow.

Embarrassed, Jason quickly backs out and turns around. "All clear," he calls to Piper.

"Ditto," she responds, using her gun to nudge over a fallen man under the coffee table. "These suckers are all dead. Ra-Ra obviously kicked up a fuss."

Jason chuckles. He pities any enemy who gets on the wrong side of the Director. She didn't get to where she is by asking people politely to leave her alone.

He circles the room slowly, letting his passably-keen observation skills take over. He usually trusts Piper more with these kinds of things, but he figures another pair of eyes can't hurt. Plus, he needs to get his head out of the past; he isn't living there anymore.

"There isn't much," he observes. If he didn't know better, he'd swear these guys dropped where they were, and all the furniture was pushed around afterwards for effect.

Piper, now crouched next to a man just inside the door, frowns. "Not to be disgusting, but there should be more blood. And, like, wounds. I'm no expert, but . . ." She uses her gun again, this time to nudge the man's arm away from his throat. "These bruises are sort of funny."

"Funny how?" Jason comes to stand beside her, squinting down at the body. Bruises look like bruises to him.

"Well, let's put it this way. When you punch a guy alive, his eye turns red, then purple, then black-if it's really bad-then yellows out before fading to a lovely puce. When you punch a guy dead," she gestures to the supposed strangle marks on the man's neck, "his blood vessels react more slowly. Y'know, since his heart isn't beating anymore and all. If he was really killed by these wounds, then they should be well on their way to black-but they aren't. They're barely out of the red stage, as if administered after he died."

"You know a lot about this," Jason says, a little nervously.

Piper shrugs. "I see lots of bruises. I get lots of bruises. I pick things up."

"So he wasn't strangled. What does that mean?" His job on these types of missions is to ask questions. Lots and lots of questions-which is fine, because he usually _has_ lots of questions. His strengths lie more in the area of . . . well, strength.

"It means," Piper straightens up, heading for the door as she speaks, "we need to get a team in here and figure out when, exactly, these men died. Because I'm fairly sure it wasn't here, and it wasn't this morning." She ushers Jason out ahead of her.

He twists his head to ask her, "The bodies were planted? Why would someone do that?"

Piper just shrugs, lips tightly sealed. He reads the silence in her face, and faces forwards. If Piper has any theories, she'll tell him when she's ready. For now, they'd better report back to HQ before Hazel declares _them_ missing as well.


	3. Chapter 3

His memories start here: with the cold. The freezing, numbing, burning, biting cold that turns his flesh black and deadens his nerves. His sluggish brain asks him why he's still alive, but the only answer is the silent scream of pain locked behind his sealed lips.

His vision goes in and out of focus. He hears clinical voices tonelessly discuss his injuries, sees white-masked doctors hover over him, shining lights and asking questions he's too cold to answer. He hears a high-pitched whizz, and something like pain touches his arm to the very bone, but it's hardly noticeable on top of the agony he's already in.

These are his first weeks of life. Sometimes he's conscious; sometimes he finds in hazy dreamscapes what he grasps for in real life. The dreams slip away from him the moment he wakes up, replaced by pain. So much pain. He doesn't remember anything else. He doesn't know anything else.

Slowly, he becomes more aware. He recognizes the eyes of the doctors who treat him. He identifies the color of his bedsheets and walls. In his head, he repeats back the language they speak to him in and compares it with his own, differentiating between the two. He categorizes-Italian, German, English.

Something's missing. He's not quite conscious of it yet.

He learns. He learns the whole world over again, how it works, why it works; it's explained to him in detail by a man with pale hair.

"And what about me?" he asks, in the raspy language they taught him. "How do I work?"

The man smiles, and gleefully tells him his place.


End file.
